WEST SENECA, N.Y. — To use police terminology, it was a property-damage only accident in a parking lot. Two cars and four signs hit in the Tops parking lot on Orchard Park Road in West Seneca.
Video of the incident shows a car accelerating quickly in reverse, quickly circling clockwise, with the vehicle spinning through a crosswalk. The vehicle’s rear bumper hit and bent a signpost in a handicapped spot, then lurched forward, striking a parked SUV and coming to rest against another signpost in a handicapped space.
The entire sequence took a little more than 15-seconds. The video of the incident was briefly posted on the West Seneca Facebook page. The department took down the video a short time later.
Again, no injuries in the mishap.
But had people been exiting the store at that time, or had been in the handicapped parking spaces, the story may have been quite different.
The driver, described by West Seneca Police as a person in his 90’s, was not given a ticket. Instead, the department has asked the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to conduct a “driver review.”
Captain James Unger explains, “Generally, what they do is bring the driver in and put them through another drivers test to see if they have the cognitive and physical ability to remain driving.”
The DMV can move to suspend or revoke the driver’s license.
Unger says the West Seneca force makes between six and 12 of these referrals to the DMV each year. He insists, this is not about the driver’s age.
“There’s bad drivers of all ages," Unger said. "It’s not an age thing. It’s more of a competence thing."
There are other places which will provide a driving assessment, without the threat of potential penalty. AAA offers a dual review says Mike Formanowicz, who manages the program.
“Number one, we’ll grade the performance and give a verdict on how we believe the DMV would have scored them," Formanowicz said. "Number two, we say this is what AAA thinks about how you did.”
Often, Formanowicz says, the issues a driver has may be less about competence and more about bad habits picked-up along the way.
“How are they handing the vehicle," Formanowicz said. "Are they using the proper lanes. On the turns, are they short? Are they wide? Are people staying in their lanes? How do they handle getting onto an expressway?”
Unger says often when police are looking into an incident involving a questionably competent driver, the damage is much more severe that what played out in the Tops parking lot.